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“ Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: Habemus Papam.”

“I announce to you a great joy: We have a Pope.” On Thursday, May 8, 2025 with that famous Latin formula, the whole world learned that the College of Cardinals had elected a new pope to succeed Pope Francis.

Ending my six-week sabbatical in Europe, I was in St. Peter’s Square that evening when white smoke from the Sistine Chapel first signaled election of the new pope. The crowd of 100,000 went absolutely wild. Nobody knew who the new pope was yet, they just knew there was one. Yet all around me people were applauding, cheering in all different languages, jumping up and down, waving every flag under the sun, hugging total strangers, many openly weeping with joy – while the bells of St. Peter’s thundered nonstop over the crowd. I don’t have to tell you that I’ve never experienced anything like it, and never will again.

One hour later, with the announcement from the papal balcony, we knew the name of the new pontiff: Robert Prevost. And the name he’d chosen as pope: Leo XIV. But, still, the new pope was wrapped in mystery. Most people had never heard of him. He wasn’t ranked by reporters at the top of the list of “papabile,” or papal contenders. Who was this guy? And what kind of pope would he be? Would he continue the open-door, progressive policies of Pope Francis? Or would he, as conservative Catholics hoped, take the church back to the strict, closed-door days of Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI?

It didn’t take long to find out. Right from the start, Prevost made it clear he would be a pope in the manner of Pope Francis. First, by the name he chose. He didn’t pick that name out of a hat. As Prevost told his fellow cardinals the next day, he selected the name Leo XIV to honor the great Pope Leo XIII who, in his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, put the church squarely on the side of working families: declaring the rights of workers to a fair wage, safe working conditions and the formation of labor unions. In that tradition, Pope Francis had made social justice a focus of his papacy. The new pope wanted everyone to know it would be his priority, too.

Then, dashing the hopes of conservatives that the church would abandon the bold initiatives undertaken by Pope Francis, the new Pope Leo, in his first words as pontiff, went out of his way to praise Pope Francis and vow to continue his work. And he’s done so in every public appearance since. Clearly, Pope Leo XIV is a disciple of Pope Francis. He could just as well have taken the name Francis II.

Already, in the past week, we’ve learned a lot more about Prevost. Like Francis, he’s a pope people can relate to. He’s down-to-earth. He’s a sports fan. He plays tennis. He likes hanging out with old friends from college. A couple of weeks ago, he was spotted with a group of friends in a restaurant near the Vatican, and dined at the home of a veteran Vatican reporter.

Pope Leo brings to the job an impressive resume. He speaks five languages: English, Spanish, Italian, French and German. He was world leader of the Order of St. Augustine. For the last two years, he served in the Vatican as head of the office that nominates new bishops. Before that, he served as a missionary in Peru and, later, as bishop of Chiclayo – where he also became a citizen of Peru. True, Prevost is “the first American pope.” But, given the decades he spent in South America, he’s more accurately called “the second pope from the Americas.”

And Prevost is not afraid to speak his mind. Long before Francis died, Cardinal Prevost had already spoken out against Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies and sharply criticized recent Catholic convert JD Vance for attempting to justify attacks on immigrants as consistent with the teachings of St. Augustine. On his election, Italian newspapers immediately dubbed Leo the “Anti-Trump Pope.”

So, from Rome, finally an election we can feel good about. In Leo XIV, the Catholic Church has put the right man in the right job at the right time. Not just for the church, but for the whole world, too.

That’s my hope and prayer: While one American political leader is trying to destroy the world, maybe one American moral leader can save it. Habemus papam!

(Bill Press is host of The BillPressPod, and author of 10 books, including: “From the Left: My Life in the Crossfire.” His email address is: bill@billpress.com. Readers may also follow him on Twitter @billpresspod and on BlueSky @BillPress.bsky.social.)

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